Separate Nails from Wood Ash

[Kschwennsen]

I don't do a lot of fires anymore but when we had the old wood stove and burned pallets night and day in there. I just tossed the boards in with nails and clean it out by the wheel borrow when it was full. never messed with sorting as the nails got hot enough that the temper was out of the steel and would be disintegrated by the next spring. Otherwise I could have gotten nails by the bucket full.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I just burned a bunch of old wood with nails that I now need to get out of the ashes.

 

[stuckmotor]

I've read that the early settlers used to burn down their old cabin, retrieve the nails, and build a new one. Have you tried driving any you've retrieved.

 

[Yanmar J]

My separation method is to simply place my magnet inside of a plastic bag and drag it thru the cold ashes.
Works just fine for me.

I have some powerful speaker mags that I use this method of putting bag over. Works great. Try hooking a stick or even a string to the magnet so you don't have to bend down. Have one on my tractor and in every place I do work. They are great for holding small things when working on things like tractor in the field, lawnmower. Also great for finding things you drop in the grass.
When you are getting ready to trash an old computer tear it open and tear out the two magnets on the hard disk. They are small only 2 inches or so but are some of the most powerful ones I ever saw. Don't know if anything else that uses hard disk has them or not.
PS Don't let the 2 computer magnets stick to each other or ever stick them on the side of anything digital. Computer, microwave, etc.

 

[nyone]

I started useing a horizontal 275gal oil tank with the top cut off as a burn pit. Works great as any fires that nails are in just get shoveled into the garbage can. The ones with no nails I pickup the whole tank and dump the ashes in the woods and bring it back.